Oly Ilunga detained in connection with $4.3m allocated for fighting the deadly virus
The former health minister for the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been arrested over the alleged mismanagement of $4.3m (£3.4m) dedicated to the Ebola response.
Oly Ilunga, who resigned as health minister in July having been removed from leading the Ebola response by President Félix Tshisekedi, has denied any wrongdoing.
Continue reading...Daily life is fraught with danger for people living in remote areas of a country where health funding is as scarce as specialist medicine
All photographs by Hugh Kinsella Cunningham
In the vast jungles that cover the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the world’s most invisible health crises burns on. The country’s extensive equatorial forests are home to numerous species of venomous snakes, but their habitat is shared by secluded communities that are being forced to look further and further afield for their resources due to poverty and the pressures of conflict and climate change.
It puts DRC at the centre of an issue Médecins Sans Frontières has called a “neglected crisis”: death by snake bite.
Continue reading...Corporate watchdog urges clean-up of supply chains as analysis finds weak regulation and enforcement has led to lack of scrutiny
Most of the world’s top companies extracting key minerals for electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines have been linked with human rights abuses in their mines, research has found.
Analysis published by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), an international corporate watchdog, revealed that 87% of the 23 largest companies mining cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, nickel and zinc – the six minerals essential to the renewable energy industry – have faced allegations of abuse including land rights infringements, corruption, violence or death over the past 10 years.
Continue reading...Doctors are battling to contain the virus and stop the epidemic spreading from the DRC to Uganda and Rwanda
A nine-year-old Congolese girl who tested positive for Ebola in neighbouring Uganda has died of the disease, as the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that the current outbreak was approaching the grim milestone of 3,000 cases and 2,000 deaths.
Her death makes her the fourth case to cross into Uganda amid the continuing struggle to contain the deadly outbreak.
Continue reading...Unicef report points to three-fold increase in number of schools closed in the region in two years due to intensifying conflict
More than 1.9 million children are forced out of school across west and central Africa due to rising violence and insecurity, putting them at higher risk of recruitment by armed groups, the UN’s children agency has warned.
In an urgent report published on Friday, Unicef revealed that more than 9,000 schools have been shut down as of June this year in eight countries; Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Niger and Nigeria.
Continue reading...One woman dead after two cases are confirmed in South Kivu’s Lwindi district, near DRC’s border with Rwanda
The year-long Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has spread to a new province, with two cases – one of them fatal – confirmed in South Kivu.
The confirmed cases were reported in the Mwenga area, some way south of the city of Bukavu, which sits on the country’s eastern border with Rwanda.
Continue reading...Congo results show good survival rates for patients treated quickly with antibodies
Ebola can no longer be called an incurable disease, scientists have said, after two of four drugs being trialled in the major outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were found to have significantly reduced the death rate.
ZMapp, used during the massive Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, has been dropped along with Remdesivir after two monoclonal antibodies, which block the virus, had substantially more effect, said the World Health Organization and the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was a co-sponsor of the trial.
Continue reading...Closure follows second Ebola death in densely populated city of Goma, on Rwandan border
Rwanda has closed its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a deadly Ebola outbreak that started a year ago has killed more than 1,803 people.
The closure came after a second death linked to the Ebola virus was confirmed on Wednesday in the densely populated Congolese city of Goma, which is on the porous border with Rwanda.
Continue reading...World Health Organization confirms a second person has died of the disease in a major transit hub in Democratic Republic of Congo
A second death linked to the Ebola virus has been confirmed in the densely populated city of Goma, located at the Democratic Republic of Congo’s porous border with Rwanda.
The first case of Ebola in Goma – an evangelical preacher – contributed to the World Health Organization decision to declare the Ebola crisis in DRC an international public health emergency.
Continue reading...The Congolese trading city of Butembo relies on its ‘taxi-motos’ to keep business running, but the taxi unions are resistant to helping government Ebola efforts – and their bikes could be spreading the disease
Swarms of motorcycle taxis overloaded with passengers and goods weave their way through traffic in the eastern Congolese city of Butembo. Motorbikes far outnumber four-wheeled vehicles on the dusty roads of the regional trading hub, especially downtown, where drivers laden with cargo carve their way through crowded street markets.
Continue reading...A deadly conflict simmers between the autochthon people forced out of Kahuzi-Biéga national park, and the rangers protecting the land
On a scarred hillside on the edge of the Kahuzi-Biéga national park, smoke rises from the once-forested slope as men cut down trees and burn them for charcoal. Suddenly, warning cries echo across the landscape. Park rangers are arriving. More men come running to the scene, some carrying machetes in anticipation of a confrontation. A tense stand-off follows.
This corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a frontline of a simmering and sometimes deadly conflict between two largely impoverished groups: the autochthon people, forced out of the forest as part of conservation efforts, and the rangers, who are tasked with protecting the land.
Continue reading...As the World Health Organization declares a public health emergency in DRC, frontline responders must be allowed a greater role in response efforts
The Ebola crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is already the second deadliest outbreak in history. More than 2,500 cases have been confirmed in DRC and 1,600 deaths have been recorded. The situation is escalating rapidly, with a new case in the transit hub of Goma reported on Sunday.
On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the crisis a public health emergency of international concern. This raises the stakes and must lead to fundamental changes in the response. The WHO wants more funding to extend and reinforce outbreak control measures, but simply expanding the current approach is unlikely to result in a more effective response.
Continue reading...Health experts have long feared the virus it could make its way to the city, which is on the Rwandan border
The Ebola virus has reached the Congolese city of Goma, home to two million people, for the first time since the epidemic began nearly a year ago.
The Congolese health ministry said a man who had arrived in the regional centre on Sunday had been quickly transported to an Ebola treatment centre.
Continue reading...Deadly measles outbreak claims almost 2,000 lives, compounding strain on health system already reeling from Ebola
Health workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have launched an urgent measles vaccination campaign in Ebola-hit regions, after almost 2,000 deaths from the preventable disease, two-thirds of them among children under five.
At least 1,981 people died from measles in DRC this year, surpassing the 1,641 deaths from Ebola, according to the UN children’s agency, Unicef. The “unprecedented” humanitarian crisis is putting the health system under strain, UN staff said.
Continue reading...Deadly outbreak is ‘global wake-up call’, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tells Guardian
The head of the World Health Organization has called the world’s second worst Ebola outbreak a “global wake-up call” to the escalating risk of disease outbreaks spreading from conflict areas neglected by the international community.
Only when there was “fear and panic” in the headlines did the international community put money into responding, said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The real issue was a lack of day-to-day funding for preparedness to combat serious epidemics before they become regional or international threats, he said.
Continue reading...In 2015, the international community – led by the US and the UK – finally decided to take Bosco Ntaganda to the international criminal court to face justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Ntaganda, known as “The Terminator”, became one of the most feared, powerful and brutal warlords in DRC since Rwanda, backed by Uganda, reinvaded DRC in 1998.
Related: DRC warlord 'the Terminator' convicted of war crimes
Continue reading...On two-day visit, DfID minister says outbreak is heartbreaking and very dangerous
The year-long Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is on the edge of spiralling out of control and the World Health Organization should declare it an international emergency, Rory Stewart, the UK’s international development secretary, has said.
Stewart is on a two-day visit to the DRC visiting emergency health centres and victims of the disease to assess the issues hampering efforts to bring the epidemic under permanent control. So far in the outbreak 2,400 people have contracted the disease and 1,606 have died, according to the WHO.
Continue reading...Study identifies DRC, India and South Sudan among countries where women are at greatest risk of attack
Sexual violence is on the increase both inside and outside of wartime contexts and women remain the primary victims, warns new research.
In their report, researchers from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (Acled) analysed data gathered from 400 recorded sexual violence events that occurred between January 2018 and June 2019.
Continue reading...Political, security and cultural complications – not least a refusal to believe that Ebola exists – have thwarted efforts to overcome DRC’s deadly outbreak
Moise Kitsakihu-Mbira has lost his brother, his grandson and 11 other family members to Ebola. When he himself fell sick he sought treatment in secret. His family don’t believe the virus exists and think a man in their village poisoned them.
Refusal to believe in the existence of Ebola is one difficulty for doctors who say the current outbreak of the deadly virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the “most complex public health emergency in history” and warn it could drag on for months.
Continue reading...To mark World Refugee Day, Save the Children invited children living in settlements in Jordan, Bangladesh and Uganda to draw their hopes and memories on a portrait of themselves
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